NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



out, armed with any old gun that he could raise by hook 

 or crook, and slew woodcock to his heart's content. 

 The great slaughter lasted throughout the whole of 

 January, and, for an entire week, woodcock were to 

 be bought for from 4^. to 6^. a couple. High times 

 these for gourmets truly ! During this period a single 

 dealer forwarded to Dublin and London 1,000 wood- 

 cock a week for three weeks on end. And at this time 

 Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey himself once counted 800 of 

 these birds laid out on benches — surely a very memor- 

 able sight, even for so seasoned a sportsman among 

 wildfowl and gamebirds. 



A friend of mine, who was in the west of Ireland at 

 this period, tells me that the hooded crows had an extra- 

 ordinary time of it among the woodcock, hunting down 

 the starved and enfeebled birds with the greatest ease 

 and killing and devouring them by scores. In this 

 way alone hundreds of woodcock must have been un- 

 timely slain during that unexampled frost. 



Our ancestors, armed only with the old flint-and-steel 

 weapon, made very good bags with this bird. In 1796 

 Mr. Yea, of Swansea, killed a hundred couple in one 

 season. The Earl of Clermont, about the same period, 

 for a bet of 300 guineas, killed in one day fifty-one 

 couple of cock, and could no doubt have shot many 

 more, as he had won his bet before three o'clock. The 

 Earl picked his own day, and there must have been a 

 great flight of cock, as at that time, near Ballyshannon, 

 Donegal, the birds were selling for a penny apiece, 

 plus the cost of powder and shot. To the average 

 shooter these phenomenal bags of cock are of course 

 unknown. The addition of two or three couple of these 

 much-prized birds to the bag is, in the case of 95 per 

 cent, of English shooting-parties, matter of keen con- 

 gratulation, even in a part of the country where cock 



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